All These Things I've Done
by MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: From a prompt on Tumblr that basically entailed Hallie leaving Jim, Maggie comforts him and drinking is involved. Don't read too much more into the title.


A/N: from a prompt on Tumblr that basically entailed Hallie leaving Jim, Maggie comforts him and drinking is involved. Don't read too much more into the title.

* * *

Maggie notices at once. Jim is slightly removed from everyone else. It's not that he's smiling less or treating anyone differently. If it's even possible to explain, she senses that he's an eighth of a beat off from the pulse of the newsroom. She's not sure how she knows this. She's not even sure why she notices this, but she does. No one else seems to notice.

Later, she glances to the stairwell to see him… not there. He's been a bit of a fixture there for a while now, the semi-private location, but still within arm's reach of the newsroom should he be wanted or needed. He's at his own desk. Neal stops by with something, Jim says his thanks. He looks fine. He is his rumpled self (does the boy not own an iron?) but something is wrong with the balance of the universe. It's a little to the right. Or it's a little to the left. It's not in the center; it's not where it should be. She can feel it. No one else seems to notice.

The show is on. This is one of those days that she decides to stay at her desk during the broadcast. There was not much for her to contribute tonight; it was and it continues to be wall to wall coverage about the government shut down. Sloan is losing her cool yet again because someone (namely Congress) is daring to fuck with the full faith and trust of… something. It's something that Sloan's been going on about for days now and to her, it has now become nothing more than white noise to Maggie. She is able to see Jim in the control room, working next to Mac, but she can tell from here that he's not quite in step with her. Like a dancer in a production, he's got all of the moves technically perfected, but he's not quite in sync with the other dancers. No one else seems to notice.

The night is over and people are parting ways. No one is really feeling joyful or morose tonight. They are just going home. Maggie catches her refection in one of the glass panels of the conference room. Her hair is blonde again after several attempts to make it so. A little more washed out than her usual shade, but she's told in time it will fade. Her hair is a little longer in the back now, closer to a bob than a butch. It took her some time, but after the election, she found therapist that she liked. Someone that she actually liked and seemed to take her concerns seriously. She was someone whose first impulse was not to medicate but to listen. When she turned back to her desk, she could see Jim there, holding his phone, leaning back in his chair, leaning forward again, seemingly unable to find his place. No one else seems to notice.

She then realizes that everyone else is gone. Offices are dark and a silence looms that happens very rarely.

"Hey," she says to him as she comes to his desk. "Going home?"

"Yeah," He says to her absently.

She presses her lips together as she looks at him and finally just asks the question that has been plaguing her all day. "Are you okay?"

Jim looks startled for an instant and then puts this fake smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm oaky. Things are fine."

Maggie looks at him again, not accusing, not threating. She's not sure how to tell him he's broken a promise. He's lied to her. Her lack of words and her apparent softness breaks him and she doesn't have to say anything.

"Hallie broke up with me."

She looks at her feet now. "I'm truly sorry to hear that." It is the most accurate of words that she can piece together. It has taken her months to reframe her relationship with Jim made difficult by the fact that he hasn't been involved in those efforts. She used to tell people that she hated him and she would say it to anyone that would listen. Over time, with help, she understood that she didn't hate him but that she hated the relationship she has with him, which was best described as steep as and with more turns than Lombard Street.

He scoffs at her and she understands why. Words are failing her because while she's been able to cease her verbal attacks and unfiltered contempt, she has yet come up with ways to fill that with acceptable responses. She is unable to verbalize the comfort she wants to offer and grant consideration his feelings deserve.

Jim looks at her now and realizes that she has nothing more to add. No snide comment about how Hallie has finally come to her senses. No backlash asking how he messed it up. No retort that long distance relationships never work in the end. None of these things are coming out of her mouth and he realizes that she actually is truly sorry to hear that he's no longer in a relationship. "Thank you." He manages to say.

She rolls one of her hands around in the air. "Let's uh," Now she really can't string the words together. Then she has a slight epiphany and simply grabs his free hand and pulls him to his feet. It was very easy for her to do as he was more than willing to stand. Maggie is in no rush, there are no coworkers to see and no one to question what they are doing. She wants him to talk but not feel vulnerable because she's, well, her.

Maggie leads him into Will's dark office and guides him to his desk chair. She fumbles for the light behind the bookcase and when she finds it, it gives the room a soft glow. Artificial candlelight, she thinks to herself. She then puts herself to work, finding the bourbon normally reserved for others and putting it to work for them. She pours them each a neat drink only because she was not about to look for some ice. His glass has more than hers. She had been making a conscious effort to not drink as much as before but concedes to herself that if she has a drink as well, it would make him more comfortable. Courage for comfort, she thinks.

He's sitting in the chair and he's momentarily lost. Jim is not sure what it is that she's trying to do. Then it dawns on him only because she's not doing it. Talk. She wants him to talk and that perhaps this is her way of trying to express that she's not here to pass judgment. He doesn't know. He looks up at Maggie, who is now sitting across the desk, holding her drink, watching him without glare or stare, just waiting for him.

He suddenly feels a thousand years old. Grace always comes when you least expect it and he decides that he's going to acknowledge her efforts. He empties the glass in a single pass and turns the chair away so that he's not directly looking at her but not away from her either, as she still sits patiently in the guest chair. Out of the corner of his eye takes notice of what she is wearing, a red blouse and khaki pants. He consciously realizes that this is most feminine he's seen her dress in quite some time. He just now has realized that she has moved away from the t-shirts and jeans that were her staple for a long time. Jim hasn't seen her in a dress in ages but now appreciates at least that she is wearing a ladies' dress shirt. This is the catalyst for him to sense that there is a shift, a change in her and perhaps this means that she's ready to reevaluate their relationship, whatever their relationship might actually be.

"It's hard when you can't be there for someone." He says quietly. "For the little things, for the day to day stuff that you want to do but can't because of distance or time. It's surprisingly difficult to be dependent on affection from a screen full of letters tied into words that are strung into sentences that blend into paragraphs and formulate a narrative." He holds the empty glass and rolls it between his hands. "I've always been told communication is important but I don't think I understood that communication is beyond words and conversation was even more so. That's the piece that we weren't able to perfect."

Jim looks away now, not sure if what he's said even makes any sense and perhaps he's slightly scared that she would chose now to be judgmental. She says nothing but takes the glass she's holding and stands slightly to set it on the desk closer to him.

He acknowledges her offering and trades glasses and empties the contents of hers. "We weren't perfect. No relationship is ever going to be perfect. I think that there has to be common ground and we had that. While simply living my life, I never realized that as I went along that I would cast these, these strings, these lines out during the journey. I thought that my affection for things would ebb and eventually disparate but this isn't the case. It's the strings. I never understood until recently that I'm tied by these strings to people and places, ideas and concepts, events and circumstances. Then when she asked me to cut these ties and cast all my lines with her, I couldn't do it. In fact, neither could she." He sets his empty glass on Will's desk.

Maggie comes around the desk and refills the glasses, taking one and finishing its contents before refilling it again. "I've been seeing someone recently."

If she had been looking right at Jim at the moment the words left her mouth she would have caught the slightest wave of anguish. She wasn't, she was tending to their empty glasses.

"A therapist, I mean. Her name is Meredith. She has a similar view, except she uses bells." Maggie finds herself leaning against the desk in front of Jim, looking at the photographs behind Will's desk, not looking at Jim. "Every significant event that impacts us is a bell. Some are big, some are small. Some make a lot of noise and some you have to strain to hear. It's the combination, the song that makes us who we are. It sounds like you thought she was asking you to give up who you are and I don't think that was the case. That's all." She wanders back to her seat on the other side of the desk.

It's barely a whisper. "I didn't know you were seeing a therapist."

"For a while now, I only visit once a week now. It was more frequent in the beginning. It took me a while to find someone that could help me. I'm a little outside her normal patient base but it's working out well."

He smiles slightly without turning to look at her. "Normal patient, is there such a thing?"

She lets a small laugh out. "Meredith specializes in working with women that have lost their children."

The room is quiet now as Jim weighs the information she's just shared. They haven't had a conversation like this in months. Instead of it feeling awkward it just seems completely natural. "Oh." He picks a glass of the desk to empty it and roll the heavy tumbler in his hands. "Are you… does it… is it helping?"

She thinks about it a minute. "It is. I don't think I'm where I need to be, but I can say there's been progress."

"I'd like to agree, if that's okay." He finally casts a glance at her and gives her a simple smile.

She returns his smile. "I am sorry about you and Hallie."

Jim goes back to rolling the glass back and forth in his hands. _I'm sorry it takes this for us to have a meaningful conversation._ "Do you think you can help me out?"

"Help you out with what?" She asks, confused.

"How many glasses have I had?"

Oh, she didn't think about that. She had it in the back of her mind that he needed courage to receive comfort and well… "Three? Two of them were rather generous."

"It's nice to hear you speak, to talk," he says to her. "Do you think we can just talk now? What'd you think of the rundown meeting today and all of that impeachment business?"

"Idiotic?" She finds herself coming around the desk and sitting on it soon enough, her legs dangling near the chair as Jim looks out the dark office windows.

They were there for hours that night, talking about everything and nothing; just trading thoughts about things going on at work. They talked about stories and other things that were going on. He told her about some of the good things from his relationship with Hallie, the things that he was genuinely going to miss about her.

Maggie talked about some of the goals she was working towards. How she was drinking less, sleeping more, spending more time at home. How she has been working on her relationship with Lisa. There was a big event for her coming up; she had volunteered to read a children's book at the library in midtown. He asked if he could be there for that. She said yes. Thanked him for even wanting to come.

They shared a cab home, Jim making sure that she went home first. The only contact they made was when he touched her shoulder as she exited the cab. "Thank you, Maggie."

"Of course," She responds. "We should do this more frequently."

"Yeah," he says as the cab door closes and she walks up the steps. "Yeah."


End file.
